SUPER EASY! Broken down into 3 essays 700-1200 words, each 30%, discussion was 10%. Lectures aren't mandatory. Lenient TAs, I recommend Rachel Wood, she is bubbly, sweet, helpful, and a fair grader.

The lectures and readings were both optional. This class was so easy. Even the essays were easy since you just had to write about your opinions on the artifacts. Didn’t mean to take it but I’m glad I did.

I found Professor Papadopoulos to be such an endearing professor. He recorded his lectures, uploaded all the slides and readings before the quarter started, and was very straight forward. You can tell he loves what he does. Although his lecturing can be a little dry, he is always willing to take questions and excited to share his personal photos of excavation sites that he has worked on. He is very knowledgeable and approachable.
This course consisted of three essays and your participation in discussion. The papers were basically an outline of questions he provided. Each paper came attach to a research journal about an archaeological find. The environment of the course was low stress. If you need a class for units that doesn't require too much then I would recommend this one. If he keeps the no exams component of the course (just the 3 papers) then you don't even need to attend class because the essays aren't necessarily attached to the course.

I took this class because I thought it would satisfy two GEs, but it does not (I now realize that is not a thing; however, you do get to choose which GE you want it to satisfy. The lectures are extremely boring and you do not need to go to class. So, take this class if you do not want to attend lecture. The midterm is just all memorization, which is alright but difficult to master and I feel like I did not learn anything. There are two papers worth 25% and then also a final that is similar to the midterm. The professor is very nice though, and has a soothing voice.

Really really easy class with a nice professor. Most people don't really care about the class, and he recognizes it (he joked before the midterm that he'd never seen the class this full before, LOL), but he doesn't intentionally try to make things tough for all of us because people don't really care, he just lectures to those who do care and are interested in what he has to say. Personally, I didn't care too much about this class, but I also had a lot of other tough classes this quarter and I couldn't bring myself to get up early to go to the class. I didn't show up to class at all after the midterm (besides on the days our papers were due), but really you don't miss out on much. In discussion, you get the sense that nobody really knows what's going on either, but it's not too tough to keep up and skim the readings right before the discussion. Honestly, a lot of the material is really interesting, but the way that Professor Papadopoulos presents it is slightly dull. The midterm is as simple as advertised, spend a solid four hours the night before the exam memorizing those slides, get yourself 100+ pretty easily. Both papers were interesting as well if you put a little effort into researching them. I think writing those papers really taught me a lot and I learned way from doing my own research on the topics than I did from the lectures that I attended. Highly recommend this GE if you're looking for something that's low effort (requires probably like 30 hours of your time all quarter long, if you don't go to lectures), and with generous grading (lots of extra credit on the exams).

Professor Papadopoulos is a really nice person. You can notice he loves teaching these topics. But let me tell you, this class was boring. He would show slides and slides of pottery and would talk about every detail about them. Going to the lecture is optional because almost nothing that he says in class will be tested. After the midterm, the lectures were pretty empty, with only 40 -50 people showing.
He grades two essays, a slides identification midterm and a similar final.
The essays are graded by the TAs. You will have to MEMORIZE around 75 images and will have to identify some of them in a test. It is a light GE if your memory is quite good.

SELLING TEXTBOOK required for the course! The Archaeology of Greece (2nd Edition) W. Biers. Contact me at *************!

As others have said, going to lecture is optional. I started feeling bad though after the midterm people started leaving and only like 30-50 people went. Prof. Papadopoulos was a little petty for students who came in and turned in essays and left. There were 2 essays throughout the quarter, each were 4 pages each & the midterm had the slide id’s. Since I took this in Winter 2020, our final became optional. I opted out because I was scared I’d do bad. If it weren’t a take-home final, it would have been 81 slide id’s and 11 sites/locations in Greece.

This class was great to take as a lightweight GE since it requires very little time and attention. There are two papers, one midterm, and one final. The topics of the two papers are quite easy and given well in advance. My TA was also super helpful in giving me feedback on my papers before the due date so that I was able to do well. Also, the required text was really useful for the papers because it contained a lot of the information the professor goes over (I'm selling a copy of the book for $10 - text me at ********** if interested!). The midterm and final are the same format - the professor shows some slides with artifacts, paintings, or the like and asks for specific facts about them (time period, artist, etc). Both the midterm and final are quite easy if you spend a couple days before memorizing the slides he designates for the midterm and the final. Honestly, very doable! He also gives a lot of opportunities for extra credit during the midterm and final, which allowed most people to get above a 100%. All in all, I highly recommend this class. The lectures can get very boring and hard to sit through, but they are also not mandatory and aren't super helpful to go to. You can get by pretty well by reviewing the lecture slides he posts on CCLE.

I took this class because I thought it would be an easy A. Honestly just find an easier class. I put so much effort into this class and it is an insane amount of work. The lectures are really boring, no offense to professor Papadopoulos. I stopped going to lecture after the midterm because there’s really no point in going to lecture. In week 1 he gives you a PowerPoint of the exact slides you need to know for the midterm and final. You have to memorize 80 slides for the midterm and then 80 slides for the final. It was too much to memorize and just a bunch of useless facts. Aside from that, there are two writing assignments and they have to be 1,000-1,500 words. You’re grade really depends on your TA. I know other people who got an A on their writing assignments despite writing it last minute and saying they were surprised to have gotten an A. My TA was a harsh grader. I’m not trying to throw shade at her but I got a B on both of my writing assignments which means there’s no way I could get an A in the class. Those two assignments were so boring and time consuming. I complained about this class all the time. Overall, if you want a class where you don’t have to go to lecture or do any of the readings and you don’t care if you end up with a B instead of an A, then take this class. It’s all based on memorization and whether or not your TA is a harsh grader. Maybe you’ll get lucky though and have a TA who grades easy. However, if you want an A and don’t want to spend hours trying to memorize a shitload of slides then take another class. I guarantee there are easier ones.